Only at Bowling Green: NCAA chooses BGSU sport management researchers for selective grant to support student-athletes

Dr. Yoonki Chun and Dr. Meredith Flaherty develop innovative program to address abusive online behavior directed at student-athletes correlated to sports betting

By: Nick Piotrowicz 

The dark side of sports betting often manifests in a place out of view of the general public: on the private social media accounts of NCAA student-athletes.

The proliferation of legal sports betting in the United States is correlated with the growing issue of bettors venting about their losses by sending abusive online messages directly to student-athletes, an issue that caught the attention of two faculty members in the Bowling Green State University Sport Management Department.

Dr. Yoonki Chun and Dr. Meredith Flaherty, both assistant professors of sport management in the College of Education and Human Development, observed that the issue had only become more widespread in recent years, with the common denominator that many of the abusive messages seemed to be linked to the same topic.

“Usually, it seemed like the people sending these messages had lost money through betting,” Chun said. “Through conversations with student-athletes at various levels, this topic got my attention. After doing some research into it, it seems like an issue that’s very pressing and timely.”

Chun and Flaherty figured the topic not only deserved their research attention, but a series of interventions that would directly benefit the people at the heart of college sports.

The NCAA agreed.

The governing body for college sports selected Chun and Flaherty’s proposal for a two-pronged intervention, called the Resilience, Education and Cognitive Attribution Program (RECAP), for their Innovations in Research and Practice Grant.

The NCAA selected the proposal for funding from a pool of more than 100 bids, making BGSU the only university in the Midwest and one of three nationally to receive $40,000 in funding during the next two years.

While many systems already exist to help student-athletes leverage social media accounts through name, image and likeness opportunities, Flaherty said there was a clear gap in helping them face the issue of receiving negative online commentary from upset gamblers.

“One of the things that really resonated with me was the opportunity to use this academic platform to create a pedagogical model for dealing with this online abuse,” Flaherty said. “There are quite a few services on how athletes are using social media, but the lessons of how to present yourself on social media are really, really different than how to deal with what you might receive on social media.”

Previous research into fantasy sports, a similar endeavor in which players manage a self-created team of real athletes, sometimes for money, demonstrates that people will often seek external factors to blame for negative outcomes.

With legal sports betting here to stay in many states, including Ohio, Flaherty said RECAP aims to go to the crux of the issue. Helping student-athletes is one part of the project, but a second intervention will provide guidance for the next generation of bettors to more accurately take ownership of gambling outcomes.

“The project wouldn’t be complete without that piece,” Flaherty said. “The athletes are the victims in this situation, and while we can help insulate them with tools and preparation, there are other people who are perpetrating this behavior. If we only focused on student-athletes coping, we wouldn’t be targeting the problem.”

The NCAA grant program, designed to enhance the overall well-being and mental health of student-athletes, chose the BGSU proposal because of its thorough plan for addressing an issue currently affecting college athletes, a population of young adults who can see their platforms grow quickly through sports.

“Based on the framework of attribution theory that we’re employing in this study, we know that student-athletes tend to internalize those negative messages, so they may engage in a psychological process where they see themselves as at fault,” Chun said. “When that happens, the real problem becomes the internalizing where they are reluctant to share with others or seek additional help.”

Crucially, the program aims to be scalable and understood by non-experts, presenting the possibility that it can be easily adapted by college athletic departments after Chun and Flaherty present the findings in 2027.

Many systems at play – high athlete visibility from televised sports, increased availability of sports gambling and ease of access through social media – are here to stay, so Chun said researchers want RECAP to go beyond understanding the problem and attempt to address it.

“College students are still going through identity development, and their experience in this stage can shape their behavior and attitudes during the rest of their lives,” Chun said. “RECAP is not the one and only thing that can address the problems, but I’m glad we’re actually taking a step further beyond just understanding the issue to actually implementing a solution."